


unmask me in the blistering sun

by torrentialTriages



Series: feels like we only go backwards [4]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Backstory, Nonbinary Character, Trans Character, autistic characters, that sweet workplace jealousy, vague/background kepcobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-13 17:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10518348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torrentialTriages/pseuds/torrentialTriages
Summary: special operatives daniel jacobi meets doctor alana maxwell.





	1. i. oh how it clings to me

**Author's Note:**

> notes: takes place approximately a week after bursting rains in august. title taken from passion pit’s “folds in your hands”. chapter titles taken from other passion pit songs.

Jacobi doesn't like being redundant. That statement in and of itself is redundant, but it's all he can feel lying in bed, heavy walls of helplessness pressing on him. If he isn't pacing the corridors of Goddard Futuristics, primed and ready for Kepler's instructions, actual  _ recovery _ from top surgery be damned, then he's useless and Kepler will have any justification he needs to throw Jacobi away.

It's been a week. It's been seven days of lying in bed, grinding his teeth because he's had worse injuries, he's been in worse pain, he's worked while going through worse than that, he was never even in danger of passing out from the pain if he got up all week. He's done all the doctors told him to. He  _ has _ to go back. Kepler's presence in his brain is calling his name.

But hey, at least his shirts fit  _ great  _ now.

Goddard is familiar, but he already feels estranged, tiptoeing through the hallways to see if he needs to alert anyone else that he's back. The secretary at the front door simply nods at him like it’s any other day. His keycard still works. The elevator is empty, which makes sense because he’s come in late today. But he still can't shake the paranoia that he's been erased from the company, no longer welcome, about to be caught and thrown out. Rachel is pacing the thirteenth floor hallway when he arrives, and her consternated stare when she sees him is doing  _ nothing _ to help.

"You're back," she says, and it's probably the second time in his life he's heard Rachel Young unsure of something. He grins, a toothy grin that stops before his eyes, and spreads his arms.

"Miss me?"

She smirks at that. "Hardly." She jerks her head down the hall. "You'll want to check in with Major Kepler, though."

His heart hops a little at that, he’s not going to lie. “He’s in his office, right?”

She shrugs. “Yep.” Then, grudgingly, in typical Rachel fashion, “It’s good to have you back.” And then she disappears into the printing room, nondescript tan folder cradled in her arms.

He remembers the way to Kepler’s office (and how could he expect himself to forget, it’s only been a week), and as he passes the rows of cubicles and then office doors, the trepidation grows like a cyst in his gut, painfully ready to burst at the slightest provocation. He doesn’t know how Kepler will react, and doesn’t dare to imagine. He just has to prove himself if Kepler needs him to.

He slows down, tension choking him, then stops fully at Kepler’s door. He grits his teeth and knocks.

“Yes?” Kepler’s muffled voice sounds a little put off, somehow, and Jacobi turns the doorknob. He’s jittery, though, and his tension causes him to burst into the room.

"Sir-" he starts, and then he stops, he stops talking, he stops dead, because there's someone else sitting in Kepler's office with him and it's- it’s a woman, wearing the most godawful, giant lumpy knitted green sweater he’s ever seen. He’s seen this woman before, a week ago, trotting at Kepler’s side, and the paranoia unfurls in his chest like an explosion, lashing through his body.

Kepler looks at him from behind the desk with mild surprise that quickly becomes a blinding smile as he rises to greet Jacobi. "Ah, Mr. Jacobi! How are you feeling? Better, I hope?"

"Ready for duty, sir," Jacobi says stiffly. The woman now behind Kepler peers at him curiously as she stands up, and he does nothing to disguise the confusion and bubbling resentment that asks to boil over.

“Good to hear,” Kepler responds with a Look that says,  _ Don’t be lying to me. _ He turns to gesture to the woman. “This is Dr. Alana Maxwell.” She waves, glancing at Kepler as she straightens out her giant sweater. “She’s the newest addition to the SI-5.”

Jacobi is dumbstruck.

Kepler looks expectantly at him. Dr. Maxwell looks uncomfortable now, and he knows that look, it’s the look of someone who’s been on the fringes of society for so long the pang of exclusion shouldn’t hurt anymore, but it  _ does _ , but fuck if Jacobi’s going to care, because- “Are you trying to  _ replace me _ ?”

Kepler frowns quizzically, mouth parting as if he’s searching for words, and he ends up simply saying, “No.” He clearly expects Jacobi to explain himself. And- and Jacobi can’t help but comply. He’s had this bottled up for a week, with no one to talk to about it, and it just comes out whether he  _ wants _ to hurt Dr. Maxwell’s feelings or not.

“Because I’m just thinking, this is awfully fishy timing,” he says hoarsely into the empty space, fists balled in his pockets. “I’ve been lying there, thinking this was your perfect chance to get rid of me. Goddard could’ve offed me in any way they wanted and I was just a sitting- a sitting bird waiting and wondering if I would die because I’ve outlived being useful to you and it wasn’t worth waiting and keeping me alive so I could go back to work here-” Dr. Maxwell looks rather like she’s found a rotting dead mouse in her garage- “and I don’t know if you were bringing her in so you could  _ fill my shoes _ and I just-” He finally chokes on air too thickly to continue. Kepler waits for him to breathe. He does not say anything. His eyebrows do all the talking for him. “I didn’t want to be useless,” Jacobi finishes, aware of how lame that sounds after he’s bared himself to Kepler and the doctor.

Kepler blinks slowly. “Dr. Maxwell, would you like to excuse us for a moment?”

“O- of course.” She gestures, confused. “Should I- step outside, or-?”

“Yes. Yes, that would be nice. Thank you.” Jacobi steps aside to let her pass, and she gazes up at him with that wary look he knows all too well, and he doesn’t have anything to make her feel better. He’s too preoccupied with his own goddamn hurt, and he figures if she’s really here to stay, then they have all the time to fix things between them, til death do them part.

As soon as Jacobi closes the door behind him, Kepler’s hands are tight on his shoulders, and for a brief second Jacobi thinks Kepler’s going to violently bash his head against the wall. “Major, I-”

“Jacobi, tell me the truth,” Kepler says, lowly, intently, and Jacobi almost melts at Kepler’s tightening grip. “Are you really good to go?”

“Yes,” he hisses, slightly desperately. “I spent a goddamn week lying around doing nothing but getting better, sir, I’m  _ fine _ , just let me get back to work, I missed- I- I just- God. I’m good, sir.”

“You have to be good with Dr. Maxwell, too,” Kepler reminds him, and the eldritch behemoth in his gut rears its head in full force. “You two are  _ both _ going to be working for me, and you have to be able to work _ together _ . Do you think you can, or do I have to take this into my own hands?” The way his voice gains a certain point under his soft tone implies something Jacobi is much better off not undergoing.

Jacobi hesitates, and decides to tell the truth. “I don’t know, sir, I’m not used to...  _ getting along _ with most other people.”

"You  _ have _ to play nice, Jacobi," Kepler insists lowly, his hands sliding down to cradle Jacobi's back, the warmth doing nothing to dissolve the tension in Jacobi's shoulders, the electricity of... he would never call it anxiety, no, Jacobi would never admit to being anxious in front of Kepler. But he does feel fear. He does feel jealousy.

"Sir, I-"  _ I miss when we were partners, when it was just us, when you were only focused on me. I want it to be just us again, because we worked like a dream together. I don't want to have to get used to another person. I want you to be mine and mine alone, because I'm yours and only yours, I've always been yours. _ The words turn bitter before his tongue and wash up against his teeth, and he turns away, leaning on Kepler so the Major can't see the shame on his face. "It's going to be hard for me to adjust to her."

"I know." Kepler is calmer now. He pulls Jacobi away from him, solemn. "But you have to. That's not an order just yet, but I know you and Dr. Maxwell will get along on some level or another. At least as colleagues." He winks. "I know you two will be just fine after a while. You’ve got a lot in common, so at least try for me, hm?"

"Yes, sir." Jacobi doubts, he doubts so hard, but he has to try if he wants to keep Kepler's approval.

Kepler’s right hand moves to cradle Jacobi’s face, and Jacobi, against himself, closes his eyes. “There’s a good man.”


	2. ii. within the confines of such chemistry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay, my mental/physical health took a huge hit this past week... last chapter will just be an unwinding segment, this was the bulk of the action! thanks for your patience i'm not used to having multichapter works  
> last chapter's title from 'the reeling', this chapter's title from 'little secrets'. special thanks to rachele for proofreading!

Two weeks later, he’s still trying to fit in with Maxwell as per Kepler’s wishes, but given that they’re stationed in different parts of the work labs on the thirteenth floor, it’s hard to just strike up a conversation. Jacobi can’t pretend he’s disappointed about it. He knows, intellectually, that it’s stupid to be so jealous of Maxwell taking up _some_ of Kepler’s time, but again, he’s not used to not being number one anymore.

On a Sunday he gets a text from Kepler. _Mission brief, my office, 0915 tomorrow. You and Maxwell will be going with me._

Jacobi’s gut clenches. He texts back _k_ , tosses his phone on the counter, and goes to have a good scream in the shower.

 

Infiltration. Jacobi suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. He’s just the heavy for Maxwell this time, so it seems, just her bodyguard while she hacks into the Noventis Research database. Kepler is brisk and no-nonsense, and while Jacobi would kill for some validation right about now, he’s missed getting down to business.

“It would be a good idea for you two to exchange numbers before this mission, and I don’t think I need to remind you two to keep your phones on silent. It’s your responsibility to pack appropriately for this mission, and don’t be afraid to pull out any tricks you have up your sleeve.”

“Yessir, thank you sir,” Jacobi grins. He can see Maxwell look at him weirdly out of the corner of his eye.

“Mr. Jacobi, you are to escort Dr. Maxwell to her workstation and then meet me in Lot 2B by 2130.” He stands. “Both of you are free until then. Dismissed.”

“Yessir,” Jacobi responds smartly, pleased at how it takes Maxwell a split second to echo him. He holds the door for Maxwell (she arches her eyebrows at him) on the way out. She doesn’t bother to look at him as she leaves, which suits him fine.

 

He decides to wait outside her lab around 20:45 with his own bag of equipment. The last of the stragglers in his lab had gone home, and the R&D team two benches away from his had pressed upon him a slender case to present to Maxwell.

“It’s a present,” winked Lee. “Our newest pride and joy. Tell her to tell us how it handles.”

The case feels light enough, compared to most others he’s handled. He’s about to contemplate putting it down, though, when Maxwell walks up out of the gloom, juggling two books and her keys.

“Hi."

“Hey.” He watches her. If she minds, she doesn’t show it.

Jacobi follows her into the lab, and sets the case down on her sparse bench. For lack of a better conversation starter, this seems like a safe option. “R&D team in my lab wanted me to give you this. They want you to test it on this mission, apparently.”

“Huh? Oh, okay.” She pops the clasps, and he takes that as his cue to hang back.

“So, uh, Doctor,” he starts as he waits for her to gather all she needs from her bench. “What’s the Major want you for?”

“Maxwell,” she says to him as she examines first the rifle and then the pamphlet in the case.

“Sorry?”

“Just call me Maxwell, it's fine,” she elaborates, slinging the strap over her head.

“Maxwell,” he repeats. She nods. “Cool. I’m Jacobi.”

“I know.” She’s digging through her drawers for more shit. God, how long did it take her to get this established since she’d been hired?

He shrugs, tamping down the questions in his mind. “Just saying.” After a little more rifling, he thinks she’s forgotten, so he presses: “So, what did he want you for?”

“I’m an AI specialist,” she tells the drawer, echoing softly in the bottomless space. “He said something about ‘talking to things that aren’t human’, so I think he needs me to talk to AIs while we’re on missions.” She stops talking, then continues almost hesitantly, “I can’t really read him.”

Jacobi _understands_ that, despite himself. “You’ll learn.”

She straightens up, holding approximately ten different cables with respective endings and a small black kit that she dumps in a sling bag that already contains a tablet. Her expression is doubtful. “If you say so.”

“I’ve been with him longer,” Jacobi reminds her, trying only a little to keep the pettiness out of his voice. “He’s super hard to read if you don’t know him very well. Trust me, I’ve been there.”

“Okay,” Maxwell muses, as if far away, then shakes her head and fiddles with the bag, zipping it shut. She is unforthcoming with more conversation, and Jacobi gets that too, because there’s really nothing much else to say.

“Good thing is by now he doesn’t require a freaky amount of eye contact,” he says, half to fill the silence and half to gauge her reaction. He doesn’t know yet what kind of person she is, whether she even thinks the same way as him, but Kepler might be right. Jacobi has a hunch of his own. He shrugs. “Then again, all eye contact sucks.”

Maxwell’s expression seems to almost melt into relief. “ _Right?_ ”

He cracks a grin. “You get it.” He might be able to get along with her. There’s potential here. “Okay, let’s get going. Don’t wanna get the Major angry.”

 

Kepler waits in the gloom of the parking lot, face hollowed out by the overhead lights. He smiles courteously at both of them, and Jacobi’s jealousy rears its irrational goddamn head again with a vengeance. “Well!” Kepler’s voice is clarion-bright in the emptiness of the lot. “Let’s get right to it, shall we?”

“Yessir,” Jacobi and Maxwell chorus. As Kepler turns around to open the trunk for them, Maxwell pulls a hairtie off her wrist and turns to Jacobi.

"What's in there?" she asks, combing her hair back into a ponytail, jerking her chin at Jacobi's duffel bag.

A smirk rolls over his face. "It's a magic bag. That's where I store all my tricks." Unnecessarily cryptic, but then again, he’s petty.

She rolls her eyes as she turns away from him, walking towards the driver’s side and presumably chatting up the Major. He watches her go as he pops his bag in the trunk, the ugly bile-colored parasite in his chest writhing as he watches her lean over and converse with Kepler, too far and too subsumed by the echoing space to hear anything. Jealousy isn't good, he knows, but it suits him, this green green mantle that shrouds him and digs its claws into his throat. He can only sit and stew in his own feelings.

Slamming the trunk closed helps, if only for a heartbeat.

He can’t let it eat him up, he _knows_ , but on the car ride there, he can’t help but leave his hand sitting near the gear stick just in case Kepler will ever hold his hand, despite Maxwell sitting in the backseat, despite how Kepler needs to drive anyway, and if he does touch Jacobi then it’ll be by accident.

But he thinks the times Kepler brushes his fingers against Jacobi’s knuckles aren’t accidents.

 

The Noventis research facility isn’t as big as Goddard’s, but it seems to be crowded with computers. Jacobi peers in a cubicle as they pass, ears perked as they creep towards the office where the coveted desktop is. _You’d think that they’d want to have some security cameras in here._ The researcher they were going to hack was guaranteed to have gone home. She’d gone home early to celebrate her anniversary with her fiancée, and Kepler would have updated them if she hadn’t.

Barely any lights are on, which makes Jacobi feel ethereal. His nerves, though, hum like a taut violin string, and only abate slightly when he jimmies the lock open.

Jacobi shuts the door softly and turns on the light. “Okay,” he mutters, tense. “Do your thing.”

“Roger.” Maxwell is already pulling cables out of her bag and setting up her tablet.

“ETA?” he asks, combing the room for bugs, cameras, or traps.

“If I get in, two minutes.” The USB plug enters the port, and she cracks her knuckles.

“What do you _mean,_ if you get in?”

“Depends on security.” She leans over the desk, tapping at her tablet, and kicks the rolling chair over so she can sit. "I have to see if I can get past their-"

"Okay, okay, don't care, just do it." He watches her fingers fly across the screen's keyboard, infinitely glad her typing is silent.

He listens to the hum of the air conditioner as he thinks. He doesn’t especially want to get along with her, but Kepler told him to, and he thinks that there’s definitely the potential to work cohesively in the field despite personal inconsistencies. He could make room for her. This could work.

“Download ready,” Maxwell says lowly. He gives her a thumbs up, then freezes.

Steps echo in the hallway, and he hopes that that’s not security, and especially not some scientist coming to check on their precious information so late in the night, didn’t all these people have _lives_ to go home to, fuck, he hopes they don’t come any closer, not down the corridor to the office they’ve holed up in-

“Hello?” Jacobi’s blood runs cold, and his hand shoots to his thigh holster. When he whips around to look at Maxwell she’s frozen up like a deer in the headlights. He pulls his handgun out silently, gesturing at Maxwell to _hurry the fuck up_ . She gestures emphatically at the tablet screen, where strings of code and what looks like gibberish flash. _I can’t_ , she subvocalizes.

 _I can’t read that, hurry up,_ he mouths impatiently, inching across the room to guard the door.

The voice on the other side sounds like they haven’t suspected anything yet. The knocks are still calm. “Dr. Marshall? Can I come in?” That’s right, the name on the plate outside said Allison Marshall, Jacobi remembers, and he glances at Maxwell. She shrugs helplessly.

Jacobi grimaces and pulls his phone out of his hip pocket. _civilian here. w2do_

The knocking grows louder. “Dr. Marshall?” A pause. “Allison?”

Kepler texts back. _Subdue. Last resort, kill._

Jacobi rolls his eyes. The last thing they need is witnesses who could potentially identify him and Maxwell later. He crosses the room as stealthily as possible, and mutters, “I’m gonna turn out the lights. Hide under the desk.” To her credit, Maxwell obeys promptly, only peeping over the edge of the desk once to check on her progress, and Jacobi checks the safety of his gun before turning off the lights, swinging the door open, grabbing the stranger by the front of their off-season holiday sweater, and pistol-whipping the poor man, catching him and laying him on the ground softly with a huff.

“It’s a fucking scientist,” he mumbles, slightly dismayed, holstering his gun and rummaging in his bag for some zip ties. That blunt trauma was going to leave a bruise.

“Dr. Owen Lane,” Maxwell supplies, still watching the screen.

“What, you read the other profiles?” Strangers’ faces don’t mean shit to him unless he has to work with them. He fastens the ties around Lane’s limbs and attaches another tie to the desk leg.

“Yeah.”

“Okay... uh... uh, yeah. Keep going.” He leans on the wall, staring up at the clock as he listens to the hum of the building. Tenser, now, paranoia almost frenzied.

The light scrolls across Maxwell’s intent face for a few more eternities as she watches the download complete. As soon as the shifting lights still, she taps the screen a few times, and yanks the plug out of the desktop. “Done.”

“Good,” hisses Jacobi, beckoning her to step over Lane’s trussed legs. She joins him at the door, bundling her tablet and cable into the sling bag.

Jacobi holds his breath and listens with all his might, heart pounding in his ears. As he slowly drifts the door open, it brings memories into his vision. Sneaking across his childhood home, the suburban lights shining through the window as he crept into the pantry for food to save in his room. Holding his breath like he is now, like he had learned to, hoping that his father’s flights of rage wouldn’t catch him out in the open of his own home. That was not home. This is not home.

The hallways are empty and just as dim as when they entered the office, but that does nothing to help Jacobi’s paranoia as he leads the way, tracing their route through the corridors.

“Security?” queries a voice out of nowhere. Jacobi ducks under a desk and Maxwell does the same in another cubicle. A walkie-talkie crackles as footsteps round the corner. The feet pass them by. “Security, it’s Miller. Requesting backup on floors one through four, I’m getting a bad feeling about room 413.”

The paranoia paid off. _Fuck._

“Let’s go,” he subvocalizes once the guard has left, not even sure Maxwell has heard him, but she follows him anyway, breaking into a fast and quiet shuffle when they meet the main hallway.

They make it down one floor before they hear footsteps that aren’t their own patter up the staircase in front of them.

“Oh, shit,” Jacobi breathes, skidding to a halt and beckoning her to follow him back down the hall to the back stairway. “That’s... people. Lots of ‘em.”

Maxwell cocks her head then holds up an unfamiliar sign, reconsiders, then the ASL sign for _6_ , shaking it _._ “ _Six people?_ ”

“Yeah.” Her lips are a thin white line.

“What the _fuck,_ ” hisses Jacobi to no one in particular. Who the fuck hired private security for a tiny research facility? That was like blowing up the facility to destroy an incriminating fax. He texts Kepler, before he forgets to in the heat of the moment. _back door 5m? got info_

“Get your gun out or whatever,” he tells Maxwell tersely. “You - you have one, right?”

“Yeah,” she snaps, unzipping her jacket to pull out her handgun. “Do I have to shoot?”

“The idea is not to die,” Jacobi answers dryly as he can. “Be prepared to, though.” She rolls her eyes. They aren’t faster than the security guards, but with the adrenaline and the head start, they round the corner just as the first guard yells, “Stop right where you are!”

 _Sorry pal,_ Jacobi mouths to himself.

“Stop!” insists the voice, and Jacobi and Maxwell find themselves in a large open atrium. Jacobi jumps a sofa and tips it over once Maxwell has clambered over the top, but by then the guards have caught up and- they have guns trained on both of them.

Jacobi yanks Maxwell down to the ground (she yelps) and fires shots at the ceiling above them, hoping to dissuade them from pursuing them further, but apart from loosening too much rubble to be of any real physical harm, it just makes the guards open fire. Jacobi returns fire, because there’s no way they can make it to the door like this-

His gun clicks on nothing.

" _Fuck_ ," hisses Jacobi as he ducks, not daring to look above the makeshift shield as he scrabbles for his duffel bag. Sound is ringing on their floor as he yells instinctively, "Cover me, I-"

The shots ring out directly over his head, and he's suddenly aware of a padded knee kneeling on his foot, but he doesn't mind, Maxwell is buying him time, and- and then she isn't, she's tossed her handgun on the floor between them.

"What the fuck?" he demands, wrists-deep in wrapped C4. "That's loaded-"

"Safety," she snaps back at him, and she's right, the safety's on, but what the fuck is she- she's reaching for the rifle strapped to her back. He realizes he recognizes it now, one of Goddard's more recently completed projects. Yang, Lee, and Dirac had been working on it across from him in the lab, they were trying to make a better collapsible rifle, right? She flops down beside him, having already straightened it out on the way down, and jams a magazine in, and he's almost distracted by the sharp danger in her focus, the intent as she peers through the scope. He could spend hours thinking about how she already seems like a mix of him and Kepler, how he really thinks he can appreciate her as a colleague. But he has a job to do too.

He pulls out of his bag a stun grenade of his own design just as Maxwell pulls the trigger, a flashbang designed to crumple in on itself when used up, and it’s just as well, really, because Maxwell ducks, rolling onto her side, and for a split second he fears she’s dead but she’s only breathing heavily with a shellshocked look on her face. He can’t ask if she’s okay. There’s no time. He holds up the grenade, shaking it a little to draw her attention, throws it over their shield, and plugs his ears and screws his eyes shut, hoping she’ll follow his example.

The dark behind his eyelids goes white, and the floor shakes a little. Muffled screaming gives way to myriad sounds of pain. When he opens his eyes after the initial flash, Maxwell is curled up on the ground with her face scrunched up. He grabs her wrist and yanks, muttering “Go, go go go go _go_ ” maybe a bit too loudly for the occasion. Her eyes snap open and she stumbles to her feet behind him.

The adrenaline keeps him going, down the stairs, out the back door with a bang. At this point he’s let go of Maxwell’s hand, and they crash into the wall of the building adjacent, rebounding into the back alley, where Kepler waits just outside the lamplight.

“Go go go,” presses Jacobi, hustling Maxwell into the car before him and slamming the door. The car revs to life.

“What happened in there?” Kepler’s knuckles are tight on the wheel, but not quite white yet. Jacobi closes his eyes.

He presses his head against the window, breathing heavily. “Two casualties, sir. I’ll report it all tomorrow.”

“I’ll hold you to it, Jacobi.” It is at this point that he notices Maxwell, frozen against the headrest. “What’s up?”

“I killed someone,” she breathes, and he can almost taste the intrusive thoughts that must be crawling up her neck. He knows this feeling. He knows.

“I know,” Jacobi tells her, voice calm as possible, reaching out and tightly gripping her hands, looking at her face (her forehead, really). He has to override the shock. She is close enough that he can tell she is looking at his nose, at his mouth, not his eyes. That’s fine. He doesn’t want to look anyone in the eyes, ever, either. He dredges up what Kepler, what his coworkers, what the Goddard therapist told him. “It was you or them. You get used to it. You’re alive and that’s what’s important.” Her shoulders are shaking and her jaw is tight. His grip loosens on her hands, unsure what to do next. “Do you want a hug?”

She nods violently, and before he can open his arms she lunges and wraps him in a hug that, surprisingly, threatens to squeeze the air out of him. Kepler raises an eyebrow at him in the rearview mirror, amused, as he hangs a right, and Jacobi flashes both eyebrows as he digs his palms into Maxwell’s back, hoping to increase pressure, since that seemed to be what she was looking for. She hugs him tighter, and that helps ground him, too, in a way, the pain and suffocation exactly what he needs as much as her. The pressure helps make things real.

He returns to his own skin faster than she does, but he doesn’t mind the contact. She doesn’t want anything out of him he can’t give her.

Eventually, four streets later, she lets go, and the triumph sets in as the pressure lets up. “Thanks,” she tells him shakily. “I’m fine now.”

“Cool.” He’s feeling amiable. No, he’s feeling pretty damn good. They did it. They work together, he knows now, he’s done what Kepler expects of him, and they have all they were sent to do. Like goddamn partners in crime.

 

Later, Jacobi pauses in Kepler’s office doorway on his way home, and tells him, “You know, sir, I think you’re right about me and Maxwell.”

Kepler leans back in his chair, lacing his hands above his head. He looks like a satisfied lion. “Glad to hear, Jacobi. See you tomorrow.”

“Have a good night, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maxwell originally gives jacobi the chinese sign language word for 6, then reconsiders and gives him the asl version. (the asl version is clunkier imo)


	3. iii. hold up high my lofty dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> decided to post this one on my birthday! just a little wind-down chapter after they've gotten to know each other better. title taken from 'make light'.

“You wanna talk about whatever’s bothering you?”

“No.” Maxwell refuses to take up any more of his couch than she can curl up on, tucked against the armrest like a book on a shelf. “Not really.”

“Mmkay. You want something to eat?” Jacobi opens the fridge and bends over. “I got some beer, a bag of pizza buns, like half a lettuce, three dynamite sticks, ‘cause they’re setting, and instant ramen-”

“Wait, what?” She turns around. “What was that, before the ramen?”

“What, the lettuce?” He pulls his head out of the fridge. “You some kind of weird vegan?”

“You keep dynamite in the _fridge?_ ”

“Well, yeah. It’s setting.” He rolls his eyes. "Obviously." A pause. "What, you want to eat it?"

Maxwell scrunches up her face. "No. I'll have what you're having."

"Oh, well you’re in _luck_ , that's also dynamite. Spicier than pepperoni, it's great. Just kidding, just kidding. Two beers on the house." He passes her her drink and comes over to flop on the couch on the opposite side of her. "What do you want to talk about?"

Maxwell frowns. "I... don't know." She hesitates, then takes a deep breath. "Actually, you know what? I _am_ going to talk about it."

Jacobi salutes her with his beer. "Talk away."

"I just... it’s been bugging me for ages. The Major said something to me after, when I was- right after the Noventis mission a month ago, and-” her voice slows down to render a shockingly accurate impersonation of Kepler’s weighty drawl- “He said, 'You know, Maxwell, it's a good thing you're an excellent addition to the team, considering you're slower at reading people than most others are.' And that wasn't the worst thing, I guess, because right after he kind of _smiled_ and said, uh, 'I see why it took us six months to recruit you' and he just walked away, and it made me feel so - powerless, right? Because it felt dehumanizing and I just _hate_ when people do that."

"That's shitty," agrees Jacobi. "He wasn't like that to me."

"Like, I'm not a _person_ or whatever, like, I'm a person, but I'm not entirely connected to _humans_ , you know what I mean?" She gesticulates, loosening up, trying to get the words right. "Like there's something that makes you different from... from human people that think differently than we do. Like you're faking being a human person with 'normal' gender and 'normal' brain patterns and 'normal' expression and the way you act. Like- like if we don't look, act, and feel entirely like a _human_ person like we’re expected to, then what _are_ we?"

"That one's easy." Jacobi takes a contemplative sip. "We're monsters."

Maxwell is taken aback. "What- no, but, does being _like this_ make me a monster? Does this make us monsters just because we _are_ who we are?"

"No. No, no no no, we're monsters independent of-"

"Independent of being autistic, right?"

"Say what?"

Maxwell gestures. "I'm autistic. That means I don't process things like-"

"No, like, is _that_ the word for it?" Jacobi sets his drink on the floor. "I always thought it was just all the shit my dad heaped on me."

"Yeah, I think we both are." Maxwell pauses, uncertain, running her index finger around the rim of her bottle. "Well, I can't... speak for you, but I know I am. It just makes _sense_."

Jacobi shrugs. "I didn't think too much about it. Like, back in the days autism was still, y'know, worse than the plague, so I never thought I was... I just kinda thought I was a weird kid because of... y'know." He lifts his shirt, the scars less welt-like than they were before. "The shit I had to get off my chest."

Maxwell giggle-snorts, mock-swooning. "Oh no, a man's chest! I'm going to Hell now!" They both erupt into laughter, and when they calm down, Maxwell continues, more seriously, "I mean, people still think we're 'afflicted with a horrible disease', but it doesn't mean we're not real people! We're just different." She grows solemn. "In more ways than just that... it gets tiring when people walk on eggshells around you if they know."

She's told him about this already. "It sucks being invisible, eh?"

She blows a raspberry, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, at least you have people calling you the right things all the time, but sometimes even if they try for me it's... it's not at the right time? And I can't tell if I'm genuinely okay with she/her or if I'm just used to it..." She blows a strand of hair out of her face. "I just... I guess I _am_ fine, I just need them to know I'm just a person. I'm not a man or a woman. I'm a person." She slumps back into his couch. "A real person."

Jacobi puts his legs in her lap. "You're a real person, alright."

She jostles his feet with her bottle. “Thanks. I’m a real live person-shaped monster.”

He laughs. “You get it.”


End file.
